March - Mad Month Makes

The month of March is as mad as ever for me as it starts, continues and ends with family birthdays punctuated by Mothers Day. Not to mention the fact that it found me going back and forth to one medical appointment after another... yeah same old, same old...

So it's just one blog post for this month with a round up of the arty crafty things produced for all the various celebrations and just because.

Original sketch and card

My 365 project has also taken a hit as my daily sketching is not so daily at present. Still the drawings are inspiring new designs and  are being tested out for my family cards as you will see from the pics.

My mum loved her card and the sentiment inside which I also took from my original sketch.. I made a few changes from the original sketch -  just the word ‘Mum’ on the mug.

For Mothers Day my grandson bought his Mum his first gift of jewellry - a cute angel in his mum’s favourite colour. It came in a little plastic pocket so I decided to make one of my minibags to present it to her. She keeps it safe in there when she’s not wearing it and loves both items to pieces.

Minibag

Makes a lovely gift keepsake.

I received a couple of handmade cards for my birthday for the first time ever - that’s not including the lovely makes of children and grandson over the years of course. 

My sister in craft, Shirley Davis of SDCrafts surprised me most of all as I didn’t even guess that she even aware of the date of my birthday. Such a wonderful surprise.. You can see that it features one of special 'Squirldoodles' She is such a lovely lady who knows how to cheer me up when I am feeling discouraged and I hope I do the same for her.

SDCrafts

One of my sisters also sent me a handmade card which is very pretty. There was a note of encouragement to tell me that my cards are prettier which made me smile. The card is very professionally made so that's a lot to live up to but definitely appreciated.

Papyrus

 This is the last birthday card of the month and this one is also taken from the sketches I am doing for my 365 project. As I don’t currently have any ink in my printer I drew this specially for the card and coloured using coloured pencils and decorated with a little glitter glue.

Add caption

 One of my gifts was a jar or cookie mix which I will be making today on this last day of the mionth, Easter Sunday. I'll post pics of my 'Rasta Cookies' before and after in my next post. 

Until then have a good holiday and see you next month x

February - Knitting, Stitching & Sketching

This is the sketch I did in the waiting room before my name was called #sketch #drawing twitter.com/DivineChoice/s…
— Pearletta Wilson (@DivineChoice) February 25, 2013

Been in a few waiting rooms lately. Another bout of ill health means I’ve been at home these past few weeks. Since my last post in fact. Of course I can’t just sit around playing games and watching TV all day so as the title suggests I’m doing some knitting, stitching and sketching.

13/365 Respect and Love...

You’ll remember that I started my daily sketchbook project a couple of weeks ago and I am enjoying it. The blank page of the sketchbook used to make my mind go just as blank. The daily project is proving a great motivator and the challenge to produce something is an inspiration. Funny how that works. Never imagined that would happen. Looking forward to seeing how this daily sketching develops.

Doing much more drawing now so there are a couple of  works in progress. Taking my time with them. They’re not necessaily for card making talking of which....

6/365 What we like...

You may be wondering when I am going to post some recently made cards. Soon I hope but I have so many cards already made that are not listed in my shops so my arts and crafts focus is mainly on other things like my minibags and minibackpacks.

back view showing double handles

hand stitched fabric lining

minibackpack

Here is the latest development of my knitted minibackpack, fully lined with fabric making it suitable for many purposes.. This one was made for my grandson so he was allowed to say how I should decorate it. He chose the colour felt and the jaunty angle of the initial on top of the shield. Wasn’t sure about the red but it actually works.

...with ipod nano

Just so happens it’s great for the ipod nano he got as a birthday present and can also store the earphones.

This design is an improvement on the first one, the green and yellow one  I made as the side panel is now a bit longer. This shows off the lining which I complimented with the white yarn decorating the edging and the white embroidery thread.

He loved it :)

February - My 365 Project #messageandsketch

You’ll probably think I’m a nut when you find out what I’ve started. Then again if you’re a long time reader you may know about my interest expressed in a previous post.. If you saw my quick post yesterday with the photo from Twitter you'll know that I am starting a 365 project. Yes I missed the 1st of January, which seems to be the traditional start day but it is almost a year since I wrote about thinking of doing a 365 project.

Back then I wrote:

A 365 project would be a challenge but on the positive side I anticipate:

• I will become more disciplined
• I will become better organised
• I will learn new skills
• I will develop my creativity

All those thoughts still stand.
 

My goal is simply to write a message and draw a picture to go with it. The message is part of my creative challenge to include more card messages for my cards, especially the printed cards of my own artwork in response to some customer queries. Drawing an image to go with the text gives me both  purpose and inspiration to draw in my sketchbook every day, something I keep promising I'll do.

These are a few guidelines I’ve given myself to help me keep focussed:

• The message does not need to be profound or even good, just good enough. This project is all about creating so not every idea will be brilliant. The excitement is seeing what develops..
• There is a limited time to come up with both message and sketch. It’s not supposed to be a work of art, just an artist at work.
• I can do more than one a day if I wish but post no more than one a day. You might think this as cheating but I see it as being organised. It’ll take the pressure off when life gets in the way of my creative pursuit.

It was supposed to be called Message and Sketch but I went and added an extra ‘s’ . Doh! Can’t change it now. Never mind

Posts on my 365 project will be using the #messageandsketch hashtag, an idea i got from working on my use of Google+. Here is the article that I’m using and G+ will be the topic for next Sunday’s #cbuk tweetchat (9pm UK time).

In the meantime I’m still creating knitted coin and card purses/wallets. I recently listed this one in my Etsy shop.

There are a couple more which are still waiting for some finishing touches. I’ve taken out one with my card and bit of chang and it was very comfortable in my pocket. It’s a great alternative to a regular purse and it can also hold your Oyster card (for Londoners). Business cards fit the card slot too.

Oh well that’s enough nattering. I’m not in the best of health these days... again... but that’s another story and it’s time to rest.

See you soon and Thanks x

February - Sketchbook Project #dcc

Words and picture number 1 - project and blog post in draft #sketchbook #dcc twitter.com/DivineChoice/s…
— Pearletta Wilson (@DivineChoice) February 11, 2013

Hiya!

Got an idea for a project that is daunting as well as exciting. This is my first attempt at doing something on paper that I couldn't wait to share via Twitter.

Oh yeah and it was a good excuse to try out the embed tweet feature. Works a treat :)

I'll be back as soon as I've got lots to tell you...

Take care and thanks for stopping by :)